


What Dreams May Come

by Anonymous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Rhaenys Targaryen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Rhaenys Targaryen dies at three, pulled out from under her father's bed and murdered. Now what?Rhaenys meets her deceased Targaryen ancestors.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

First, Rhaenys had screamed, then kicked, and finally cried.

 _Hide,_ Mother had told her, and she had hid in the safest place she knew. She’d been dragged out from under there, and it had hurt, and she’d screamed and kicked and cried. Now she was under something else, and she didn’t know what it was or where she was or how she’d got there, but she wasn’t going to come out.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and sobbed. Her whole body trembled.

“Hello?”

She tugged her face away from her knees to peek. There was a man there, away from whatever she was under, on his knees, watching her. She flinched away from him. He raised his hands so she could see them. He had no sword.

“Fear not,” he soothed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Stay back!”

The man did.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, all iron tones and quiet reassurance. “But I do want to talk to you. Will you come out?”

She hesitated. The man remained there, perfectly still, and it was that patience that made her decision for her.

Rhaenys nodded. The man smiled.

He reached out to her with one hand, not grabbing her, and she managed not to scuttle back. The man was very tall, even taller than Father. Rhaenys could tell that much even when he was kneeling. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and when he wrapped a hand around Rhaenys’s wrist to guide her out from under the table, it was gentle. He let go of her as soon as she was out. Her wrist felt cold without his touch.

“Hello, Princess,” he murmured, shifting so he was sitting properly, rather than kneeling. “Can you tell me your name?”

“How do you know I’m a princess if you don’t know my name?” Rhaenys asked, crossing her arms across her chest and tilting her chin up so she could stare at the man’s face better with narrowed eyes. The man huffed.

“I do know your name,” he admitted. “I just hoped that you might be willing to speak with me? I thought I’d start with an easy question to make sure you knew the answer.”

“That’s what Viserys tells me when he doesn’t know something,” she informed him. “He’s my cousin.”

That wasn’t really true. Viserys was Father’s little brother. He was older and bigger, but much less so than Mother’s brothers, the ones Rhaenys could only just remember. If this man knew _her_ name, he would probably know that. He smiled. “Would you indulge me anyway?”

Rhaenys frowned and pushed out her lower lip as she stared. But the man’s face remained calm and gentle and really, Rhaenys couldn’t think of a reason _not_ to answer, so, slowly and carefully like her septa had taught her, she said, “Rhaenys of House Targaryen. Princess of Dragonstone.”

It wasn’t quite right, not clear enough that Septa Jeyne would be satisfied – _“Enunciate,” the old woman would say, “stand up straighter, crisper on the finish” –_ but it was enough. She dipped into a curtsy like she’d seen ladies do, realizing only too late that this man was not her father nor grandfather nor grandmother, and so she ought not to do that. He ought to be curtsying to _her._ She straightened up quickly.

The man didn’t curtsy. Rhaenys supposed that would be difficult for someone sitting. Instead, he inclined his head.

“My name is Baelor,” he confided. “Baelor Targaryen. I suppose you could call me your uncle.”

Her eyes widened. She tilted her head to the side. “You’re a Targaryen? But you don’t look like…”

The man smiled, small and sad, and Rhaenys quickly reconsidered the point.

“Neither do you,” he pointed out. “My mother was a Dornish princess, too.”

She stared. “ _I’ve_ never heard of a Baelor Targaryen. My father only has one brother.”

He’d have a sister, soon, too – Rhaenys had told her grandmother before she left that the new baby in her belly would be a girl. The queen’s answering smile had looked just like the man in front of Rhaenys now.

“True,” the man – Baelor – said. “I am not your father’s brother. I am your grandfather’s grandfather’s uncle.”

Rhaenys thought about that for a moment. Eventually, she gave up, and instead asked, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere safe, Princess,” Baelor promised. When she looked into those dark eyes, she couldn’t help but believe him. “No one can hurt you again.”

“I want my father,” she said, and stamped her foot. “I want my _mother._ ”

Baelor’s brow creased. He took her hand in both of his own – large and warm and gentle, just like Father’s.

“I can’t take you to your mother yet,” he told her. “But Rhaegar is here. I’ll take you to him, little princess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...don't actually believe in an afterlife, but I have a lot of feelings about Rhaenys.


	2. Chapter 2

“Where are we?” Rhaenys asked as Baelor led her by the hand down empty halls. She glanced around at the dark stone walls, at the claws holding up the torches along them, at the heavy wrought archways. These hallways were nothing like the ones she always chased Balerion down.

“Can’t you guess?”

Rhaenys shook her head. Baelor smiled. “You can do better than that, Princess.”

 _Claws like dragons_ , she thought, looking at the torches again. Dragonstone? Did she really remember Dragonstone so little? She had not thought it looked much like _this._ Baelor shook his head when she asked.

“Think older,” he said. But before she could shrug her confusion, Baelor stopped walking in front of a door. He didn’t open it. Rhaenys tilted her head to look up at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Baelor said. “Are you ready?”

Ready? Why wouldn’t she be ready? She nodded.

“All right,” Baelor said. He pushed open the door and ushered her inside.

It was a large room, but Rhaenys saw none of it – her eyes went right to the centre of it. Father sat there, cross-legged and barefoot upon the floor.

“Rhaegar,” Baelor said before Rhaenys could say anything. Father opened red-rimmed eyes. Those eyes fell upon her immediately and widened. He scrambled to his feet.

Baelor released her hand. Her father scooped her up and held her close.

“Nyssa,” he whispered into her ear, and his voice was hoarse, rougher than she’d ever heard it. “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

 _Nyssa._ She tried to look up at Father’s face, but the way he was holding her made it impossible. Her throat felt tight. Her eyes itched.

 _Nyssa,_ she thought again, and then she was crying all over again, her sobs muffled by Father’s chest. Her heart raced. She couldn’t breathe. _Nyssa._

Mother never called her that, nor Grandmother – that was _Father’s_ name for her. Only his. He’d put her on his knee and tell her stories and smile that secret smile just for her, calling her by the name that was just for him. But when he’d come back then left again, he’d neither smiled nor called her Nyssa – _“I’ll be back soon, Rhaenys. It will all make sense soon.”_

Mother had been upset and Grandmother had been pale and _where had he been_?

“Where were you?” she cried, beating at his chest with her fists. “I was scared!”

“I couldn’t –” he choked, arms tightening around her. “I had to go to Dorne. And then –”

“You _left,_ ” Rhaenys said. The tears were still coming. She sniffled and shoved at Father’s chest as hard as she could. “Why did you _leave_?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and let go of her at last. She scrambled away from him. He got down on his knees, staring at her, reaching his hands towards her. She crossed her arms tight across her chest. “Nyssa, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s not an _answer_.”

He’d said it would make sense, but none of it made any sense at all, and the more Rhaenys tried to think through it, the less sense it had made – he’d been in Dorne? Mother was from Dorne. She talked about her brothers there all the time – she’d even told Rhaenys that they would go visit one day. If Father had been in Dorne, why hadn’t he brought them?

It didn’t make sense, but her tears slowed as she thought about it, and at last, she felt like she could get enough air. She swiped the back of a hand across her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath. “Why did you have to go to Dorne?”

Father squeezed his eyes shut. “The dragon has three heads. I went for the third.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter – “Why didn’t you take _me_?”

Father opened his eyes again, and Rhaenys’s breath caught at the look on his face.

“I _couldn’t,_ ” he said. His pleading eyes brimmed with tears. They looked just like Aegon’s. “I never thought – I _couldn’t._ I thought…I thought it would just be for a few months. I was going to come back and bring you a sister.”

A sister? A few months?

“Just?” she repeated. “ _Just_?”

He’d been gone for _so long._ She’d been alone. She’d been _scared._ “I hid under your bed!”

The tears spilled down Father’s cheeks. “Nyssa –”

She shuddered. “ _Stop_!”

He reached out to her again, and she backed up, right into Baelor, still behind her. Baelor squeezed her shoulder.

“Enough,” he said. It was quiet but firm, and Father stopped talking. Finally, he pulled his gaze away from Rhaenys to instead look up at the tall, tall man – prince? – in the doorframe. “Rhaenys, there are others here I think you’d love to meet. Would you like me to introduce you?”

Ordinarily, Rhaenys might have asked more questions. Now, she would have agreed to almost anything if it meant going anywhere else. She nodded.

“Okay,” Baelor said. “Let’s go.”


End file.
